If I Was Tempted I Would Run
by Trashlife
Summary: "It started with Loki Laufeyson throwing Tony Stark out of a window." A collaboration between Trashy and her sister npeg. Regarding chapter 1, we realised we made a fatal error: it's Mark VII not Mark VI, apologies.
1. Instead of Thinking I Just Act

**A/N**: _A teeny tiny presmut frostiron drabble collaboration between myself and my sister, npeg, because we are clinically obsessed. The squiggle signifies that if this was made into a longer fic, there'd be loads more story there, but it's a drabble, so deal. Hope you enjoy!_

**Disclaimer:** _I don't own anything but I wish I did_

It started with a hand curled around a throat, with the brief closing of a windpipe, the clench of a gut sharply filling with dread, with blood flowing to inappropriate places, and with the thought "Well, this is mildly arousing".

It started with Loki Laufeyson throwing Tony Stark out of a window.

Of course Tony's perception of the situation changed slightly when he found himself accelerating rapidly towards a concrete pavement. He fell spread-eagled, wrists down, desperately waiting for the Mark VI to come into contact with his skin in a blissful clash of metal and flesh. He had no time to doubt his technology, no time for last thoughts, just the sight of hard concrete rushing up to meet him, and then the wonderful feeling of his armour, his saving grace, enveloping him in its titanium embrace.

He stopped falling and shot like a rocket up from the ground, inches from brutal and _fatal_ collision, relief flooding through his veins like melt-water. Within a second, his comms were up and the sound of Steve's panicked voice echoed through the HUD.

"Tony..? _Tony_..? _STARK, are you okay_?"

"I just got thrown out of a window Cap, what in the hell do you think?"

**-IIWT-**

"You _threw me out of a window_," Tony stated, deadpan, arms folded over his arc-reactor like a petulant child.

"You destroyed my army." Loki replied with a shrug, as if the two incidents were equal in importance and his explanation resolved the issue. He took a step towards Tony, and Tony took a sharp step back, placing the workbench between them.

Loki snickered, "I'm not going to kill you, Stark."

"Well, yeah, see, excuse me for not immediately believing you?, but my _a priori_ knowledge is telling me you're a psychotic _ass_ and you can't be trusted."

"Oh, come now, I've travelled all the way here, and have I attempted to attack Earth? No. Why must you be so suspicious?" Loki asked, palms and eyebrows raised, as if to placate Tony and mock him simultaneously.

"Erm, because you're _Loki_? God of Lies and Mischief? _And_ because you've somehow escaped Asgardian imprisonment?" Tony's eyes darted to a screwdriver on the workbench and he began mentally calculating the force needed to drive it into Loki's throat, heart, eyes, any patch of skin at all that could be pierced. He looked up to have his brown eyes lock with cold, hard blue.

"If you honestly believe that there is anything strong enough or powerful enough to contain me, then you are truly a fool, and I am disappointed." Loki's gaze burned into Tony's, with an icy ferocity that both terrified him, and, perhaps more alarmingly, aroused him. Loki inched closer, until he was pressed against the workbench, palms flat against the surface, a smirk playing on his lips.

"Why are you here?" Tony whispered, head straining back to keep optimum distance. His breathing was loud in his ears, his pulse curiously erratic. A part of Tony wanted to move away entirely, but that would put the screwdriver out of reach, and there would be nothing he could use as a weapon in his proximity if he retreated any further.

"Is it not obvious?" Loki asked, tilting his head to the side, his pink tongue darting out to wet his lips. Tony's eyes instantly caught the movement and his breath hitched. Loki leant even closer over the workbench, until their breath mingled in the tiny space between them. The demigod's gaze flitted between Stark's mouth and his glazed eyes, causing a half smile to form on his own parted mouth. Tony was surprised to find his mouth was dry.

Suddenly Tony's eyes cleared and his mouth contorted into a smirk. Within an instant he had his fingers wrapped around a screwdriver and lunged forward to plunge it into Loki's chest. But the demigod was much quicker. Before Tony could even get close, Loki curled his hands around Tony's wrists and flipped him back onto the bench. Tony's spine met wood with a heavy thud, leaving him winded face-up on the worktop.

"Tut, tut," Loki smirked, emerging upside down in Tony's field of vision. He began painfully prying the screwdriver from Tony's fingers. Stark winced as he heard a crack, and the metal rod fell to the floor with a clatter. And damn, if Tony wasn't useless against a demigod without his damned suit.  
"I can't believe you fell for that," Tony grunted, as Loki applied pressure to his wrist joints, pinning him to the worktop.

"Fell for it?" Loki laughed. "Look at what position you are in, _human_." He spat the word with thinly veiled condescension. "Does it _look_ like I 'fell for it'?" His face moved closer once more, and Tony grew a little dizzy at looking at him from upside down.

"And Stark, in case it occurs to you, do not even try to lie to me. I am the Liesmith and a god, so not only can I see through your pitiful attempts in an instant, but I can also smell your lust from across the room."

Tony stared.

Loki's lips curled back into a cruel smile. "_You reek of it_. Just as you did in your tower, before I cast you out into the sky like a projectile. Who knew you were so fond of being dominated, hm?" He hissed the words, teeth bared in a malicious grin, and Tony felt every syllable send sharp jolts along his spine.

Then, Loki leant down ever so slowly, like a snake uncoiling, until his nose grazed across Tony's ear, breath hot on his skin. "Shall I hold you down harder, Stark?" Loki mused, before digging his nails into the skin of Tony's wrists, and Tony could feel the curve of his smirk against his ear. Loki moved with an agonising slowness to bring their faces an inch apart.

Tony tried to strain against Loki's hold, but arousal stole over his skin in a slow, creeping flush, and he was surprised to find his breath escape shallow and uneven. He was still dizzy from seeing everything from upside down and his vision swirled as Loki inched closer, and closer. His eyelids fluttered, gaze shifting from the god's ice eyes to his pink mouth, reality swimming in and out of focus. Tony released a breath he didn't realise he was holding; only to have Loki steal it as he pressed his mouth against Tony's own.

**A/N:**_ Please review, otherwise kittens die :}_ _peace out homeslices, __Trashy xo_


	2. The Consequence of Action

**A/N: **_Hey so, npeg and I were leaping around like mad bunnies at the amount of hits this ficlet got, and seeing as we're bored (and I was a little drunk) we decided HEY WHY THE HELL NOT, LET'S TURN THIS INTO A CHAPTERED FIC. Because In the words of that awesome Loki gif I DO WHAT I WANT. And btw you guys should all search for npeg on here and read her amazing Steve-feels one shot. Anyway more smut, so enjoy :}_

Tony Stark gasped into Loki's mouth and the demigod took it as an opportunity to deepen the kiss, loosening his grip on the mortal's wrists and pulling at Tony's lower lip with his teeth. Tony slid his hands along Loki's forearms and Loki smirked against his mouth, until Tony brought his fist up, snapping Loki's head back with a sharp, loud crack and send him reeling back into another workbench, scattering tools.

"What… the fuck… _was that_?" Tony spat, launching himself off the bench to spin on his heel and face the demigod. His breath came in short pants from the shock of it. Tony wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and looked like he wanted to spit on the floor. Loki's hand flitted to his jaw line, fingers dancing over the sensitive skin. A look of,_ wait, was that, could that have been, pain?, _and rejection flickered across his face, but it was replaced instantly by a schooled glazed look, a placid mask. But his lips were pressed tightly together and there was thinly veiled rage glittering in his eyes. It was a look that most likely pre-meditated murder.

"I _would_ find it surprising that you are foolish enough to try and engage me in hand-to-hand combat without your little suit on, but now I seem to recall that you are an imbecile, and this behaviour is only to be expected from an idiot such as you", Loki hissed, his teeth bared and suddenly his posture shifted into something more predatory, like that of a serpent ready to strike.

"Are you sure you're not just being mean because I won't put out?" came Tony's retort, his fists coming up in a boxing stance, the workbench safely between them once more. The rational part of his brain was telling him to notify the others and get the hell out of there, because yeah, damn it, he _was_ vulnerable without his suit and Loki knew that. It would only take a graze of his fingers tracing the alarm signal pattern onto the touch screen to his right…

Then again, the other part of Tony's brain was, at this point, shouting at him to defend his honour, because, and it had taken him a moment to process this, but he had just been _bent over a table_ _like a girl_ and Tony thought _hey, whoa, back up a second let's just think about this…_ _did Loki seriously just __**kiss me**__? God of Lies Loki? Thor's batshit brother Loki? This guy has been around for what must be __**aeons**__ working on mortal time, and then of course there's all that metal… and leather… not to mention his "glowstick of destiny", as if that plus everything else about his outfit __**wasn't**__ some kind of giant, obvious nod to a bondage kink or something… And wait, what is this heart fluttering bullshit, what am I fucking gay now?_

As all of this chatter raced through his mind, Tony kept his eyes trained on the demigod in front of him. A chill ran down his spine as Loki's mouth split into a terrifying, manic grin. Suddenly, something jerked him upwards from behind and sent him soaring over the workbench and crashing inelegantly into a pile of suit components ten feet away, right through where Loki _should've_ been standing. He dislodged himself frantically, throwing bits of suit away, eyes darting round the room, only to find the God of Mischief standing smirking where he himself had stood a moment before. _Stupid goddamn bullshit teleporting, duplicating, magical bastard_,Tony grumbled to himself, clambering up off of the ground, head swimming and a little disorientated.

Before he could even properly regain his balance there was a flash of green and Loki was inches away, wrapping a hand around Tony's throat, _again_. Tony tried to choke down _some_ air, and gulped at the lack of oxygen, but he still managed to connect his fist with Loki's face, once, then twice, before he was dropped unceremoniously to the floor in a heap. A kick landed in his stomach. He spluttered, and the taste of blood filled his mouth from where he'd bitten the inside of his cheek. It occurred to him at this point that it probably would have been a wise idea to activate that alarm to signal a security breach, and, actually, how in the hell had he not foreseen the need for some kind of sudden-magical-apparition-detecting intruder alarm_?_

_Ah fuck,_ he thought, rolling onto his back, despite the pain that wracked his abdomen, _is this actually happening?_ _I'm going to get the shit kicked out of me because I didn't kiss someone back? Seriously? I should file a complaint with someone somewhere ...Or have Pepper do it..._ His musings were cut short when a certain demigod straddled his legs. Loki took his wrists, _again_, and pinned them harshly to the floor, applying so much pressure Tony almost cried out, and he swore he could actually hear his bones _creak_.

This was the most inappropriate time to become aroused, and yes, Tony knew that, and yet he still felt something coil in his stomach like hot wire, and he felt himself stirring as Loki pressed almost indecently against him.

"Uh, okay, I... could you just, would you mind, not… doing…" and a grunt escaped him as Loki shifted sadistically on top of him.

"_This_ is why…" Loki began, causing the tiniest amounts of friction to occur between their anatomies, pressure and heat emphasising his point, "…I know that you're lying." He smiled almost cockily, leaning down to press their bodies further together, until his forearms lay on top of Tony's own. He moved his face so his lips brushed the mortal's ear. "You're not even very adept at hiding it, Stark. In fact your attempts are abysmal." Tony felt a tongue run along the shell of his ear and his whole body be damned he succumbed to a shiver. He tried to escape the hold Loki had on him, he wriggled and contorted his body, ignoring the pain from their scuffle moments before, but every time he fidgeted it resulted in blissful contact between a certain part of his anatomy and Loki's _ass_ and it almost made him forget why he was struggling in the first place.

"You manipulative little _shit_, we are not fucking _doing this_," Tony hissed, his eyes sharp as they bore into Loki's own as the latter moved his head back. "Let me go, _Reindeer Games_."

Loki lifted Stark's wrists up a little, pulling the mortal's body with him, and then slammed him all the more forcefully down against the ground. Bits of metal digging into his back, Tony's head connected sharply with the concrete flooring and he saw stars dance across his vision, a hiss of pain escaping his lips.

"No," Loki growled, his body a solid block of heat plastered against Tony's, "_I don't think I will_". The billionaire felt his breathing rapidly deteriorate into short, shallow gasps and a flush crept up his neck that went all the way down to his toes. As his body betrayed him Tony tried to calmly remind himself to find a specialist to work on his goddamned domination fetish… If he ever got out of here alive, that is.

Then Loki's mouth was crushed against his, and for just a moment Tony forgot how to breathe in the haze of teeth grazing his lips, and a warm, wet tongue darting inside his mouth, exploring. The heat in the pit of his stomach contracted violently and expanded out, radiating through every cell of his body, and he couldn't for the life of him understand what was going on inside him at that moment. Tony Stark, self-professed genius, found himself utterly and completely at a loss how to explain what _exactly_ was occurring at the point where their two bodies met, but all he knew was that, _God, he wanted more of it_. Logical thought had absolutely no place where that heat was taking him. The taste of blood mingling with saliva in their mouths was making his head spin. He rolled his hips upward, suddenly demanding, and growled into Loki's mouth.

The demigod responded immediately, pressing down against him, and taking his chin between thumb and forefinger smiled down at him, one eyebrow raised in sheer amusement.

"How diverting…" Loki mused, voice husky, a throaty laugh bursting unexpectedly from his lips.

And then, with the worst possible timing _in antiquity_, Steve Rogers strolled blissfully ignorant into the lab.

"Hey Tony, you got a second? I need you to patch up my…", he asked, and that was all he managed, before the sight of the leather-and-metal-clad demigod more or less devouring Tony Stark's face brought him to a screeching halt.

The wet smash of his coffee mug meeting the floor ricocheted around the lab, and with a high-pitched strangled sound, Steve choked out "Good _God_, _TONY_?"

**A/N: **_Nice bit of Steve freaking out there :D Pl__ease leave a review if you enjoyed this, (And check out npeg's profile!) it means so much to us! _


	3. I Would Never Ask A Question

**A/N**: _Hay Guys Welcome back! npeg and I just wanted to say thank you so much for the reviews and to all those of you who have story alerted/favourited this fic, and also of course to every one of our readers. We had no idea it would be this popular, and we are just having so much fun writing this! _

Disclaimer: W_e own nothing_

"Good _God, TONY?_"

The shocked silence that followed was abruptly shattered by Steve screeching "What in the hell is going on?"

The scene before him, if not so unbelievably horrifying, could have been quite comical to an outside party. Steve immediately assumed a defensive stance, his gaze locked on the two bizarrely entangled men on the floor. Tony's mouth opened and closed like a fish and his head turned from the demigod on top of him to Steve, back and forth. It appeared that for the first time, words had failed him.

The silence was broken by a hiss issued from Loki's lips. His face contorted into an expression of extreme annoyance as he studied the soldier who had so rudely interrupted them.

"I will return," he ground out, his eyes flickering to Tony, the promise glowing in the embers of desire still visible in his eyes. Before Steve could even cry out "Oh no you don't..!" the demigod had vanished in a flash of green.

Tony looked completely bewildered as he staggered to his feet, grateful that Steve's surprise arrival had at least killed his raging hard-on. He didn't want this encounter to be anymore awkward than it already was.

"So…" he began, straightening out his shirt and completely avoiding Steve's eyes, "What's the probability that you'll forget ever seeing that?"

"Negligible if not entirely non-existent," Steve replied, taking a cautious step forward, as if expecting either Loki's sudden return or Tony trying to bolt. "Tony, what _was_ that? How did he even get here? He's supposed to be locked up in Asgard!"

"I honestly have no idea," Tony shrugged, wincing as a frisson of pain danced down his spine, ah yes, he was wondering what injuries he had sustained after his little bout of fisticuffs. He looked towards his childhood hero, the barest shade of embarrassment colouring his cheeks and entering his voice, "We… er, didn't exactly have an enlightening conversation."

"Yeah do I even want to ask what the hell _that_ was about?" Steve gestured vaguely at the spot where the two had been lying not a minute before. His eyes bore into Tony's and the billionaire found himself shrinking back a little, desperate to avoid the inevitable interrogation he was sure was coming.

"I didn't even think you…you know…with men…" Steve's discomfort at asking such a question practically screamed around the room and his cheeks flushed deep red. At least Tony was able to take some comfort in the fact that this was going to be utterly horrible for both of them.

"I don't!" Tony rushed, "I'm not… oh my _God_ we are _not_ having this conversation!" he threw his hands up and turned away, ignoring the jolt of pain the movement caused. He moved to sort out the mess left from his fight with Loki. "I would quite like to have my sexual identity crisis _alone_ first, if you wouldn't mind? (_If that is even what is happening here_) And Jesus Christ don't you know how to knock? J.A.R.V.I.S what the hell have you been doing all this time? Why didn't you warn me?"

A strange noise reverberated around the workshop, as if the AI was clearing its throat.

"You put me on mute, sir, after I continued to criticize your calculations for the schematics you were working on."

Tony huffed in frustration, "What's the _point_ in being an artificial intelligence if you're not artificially intelligent enough to un-mute yourself _in order to tell me that Steve is coming_? Or better still, to do something when I was getting my ass kicked by the God of Mischief and Fire!"

There was a moment of silence before the AI almost drawled, "_Deeply_ sorry, sir, but it rather looked like you were enjoying yourself in those last few minutes…"

Tony growled up at the ceiling, already working out several _adjustments_ he'd have to make on the robot that ran his house.

"That's enough out of you J.A.R.V.I.S, so do me a favour and shut up?" Tony grumbled, picking up scattered tools and components.

"As you wish, sir" came the, _wait, was that snarky?,_ response.

"Getting your ass kicked? That's what this mess was? I thought you two were …" Steve blushed again as Tony shot him a look, his sentence trailing off with embarrassment. "Anyway!" he said, interrupting himself, "You engaged in hand-to-hand combat with Loki Laufeyson _without your suit_? Do you actually have a death wish? He could have killed you in a heartbeat!"

Tony didn't dignify that with a response, instead continuing to sort his tools, before concentrating on positioning them all perfectly parallel to one another.

"We have to tell the others, Tony" Steve said, not moving from his spot by the door. His eyes glanced down to his broken mug and he guiltily bent down to collect the shards.

"Erm, no, we don't" Tony said, his voice close to panicked. "We most certainly do _not_ need to do that. No way. In fact, that is probably one of _the_ worst ideas you've ever had." Finished with tidying the pile of suit parts, he proceeded to the workbench Loki had thrown him over. The same bench Loki had pinned him to and kissed him on. He shook his head, determined to avoid thinking about it until much, _much_ later, when he could dissect his temporary lapse of sanity in complete privacy with a bottle of scotch to drown his shame. At this point Tony was semi-seriously considering throwing himself out of the window again just to avoid having to think about it, much less explain it to Steve "pure-as-the-driven-snow" Rogers.

"Tony, the last time Loki was on Earth he almost flattened New York and _tried to take over the planet_. We can't just let him flounce back here without telling Fury." Steve straightened up and levelled Tony with a serious look. This was the look of a Captain, full of purpose and responsibility.

"Did you just use the verb _to flounce_?" Tony raised an eyebrow.

"Tony! Take this seriously!" Steve snapped, "What if Thor doesn't know that his brother is missing?"

"Sir," J.A.R.V.I.S interrupted, "Director Fury is calling an urgent meeting. Attendance is compulsory."

"Fifty bucks says that means you have some explaining to do," Steve muttered, putting the broken remains of his cup in the bin and then turning back to Tony. "C'mon, once they find out he was here, they're gonna have a whole ton of questions to ask you."

"Precisely why I'm not going," Tony said, his workbench now exactly as it should have been. He didn't have time for the pirate or the team, he had equations to solve, variables to isolate, tests to run. He needed science to tell him what the fuck had just happened. And how _exactly_ he could prevent it from ever happening again. He'd be damned if he was going to just let Loki sneak up on him like that a second time.

"Tony, so help me, I will pick you up and _carry you_ if you don't come willingly," Steve warned, advancing on the billionaire in order to prove his point.

"Fine!" Tony retorted "but we don't tell them _anything_ about you know…what you saw," he gestured wildly with his hands to articulate. "We tell them he broke in, we fought for a bit, you showed up, _thank God_, and he vanished. End of story."

Steve looked like he was going to voice his disagreement until he saw the unsettlingly panicked look on Tony's face.

"Please Steve, just let me work that one out on my own."

Steve caved, heaving a sigh, and nodded, then marched out of the workshop. Tony followed begrudgingly behind him, mind racing as he tried to conjure up a lie convincing enough to satisfy Captain Eyepatch and the Wonder Kids.

**A/N:** _Okay so this chapter turned out to be a bit of a filler, sorry for the distinct lack of Tony/Loki but hold tight, it's coming ahaha. We needed this chapter as an excuse for a little plot development, and a way to start introducing more characters, you know, flesh it out a little.  
**Important:** I (Trashy) shall be entering the busiest week and a half ever tomorrow, and I shall be out of the country from 24th-31st. Do not fret, I plan on writing whilst away and keeping up correspondance with npeg, so hopefully we'll get a chapter up.  
_

_Please R&R we love hearing from you guys!_


	4. Keep A Straight Face

**A/N:** _Hay guys! So sorry for the wait, although I was able to write the first part of this chapter on holiday, I had no way of sending it to npeg for an upload. When I got back I started writing straight away, but this was a tricky chapter to get out so it took some time. Basically this is a monster chappie, with a word count at almost 5k, but I hope you guys enjoy it. There's a bit more filler, bit more character development. BUT THERE'S ALSO A BIT WITH TONY AND LOKI IN THE SAME ROOM. YAYYYYYY. But not that much of them you know actually _being together_ because I'm mean and believe in pacing fics out ahaha. Anyway this chapter was crazy fun to write and I hope you all like it!_

**Disclaimer****: **_I own nothing._

They entered the meeting room to find the other Avengers already assembled, waiting patiently at the table as Fury whispered heatedly to Agent Hill in the corner. Tony took a seat beside Banner, and Steve sat down opposite him, across the table. Stark glanced over to Clint and raised his eyebrows as if to say, "Wonder what this is about"; Clint conveyed his lack of knowledge with a shrug. Both Agent Barton and Dr Banner appeared curious about the meeting, probably because they knew that whatever warranted an urgent meeting at the _mansion_ as opposed to SHIELD HQ was obviously something big. Tony's eyes moved to Natasha, who wore her usual blank mask, but underneath Tony knew that she too was impatient to find out what was going on. Tony didn't know whether he should have enjoyed knowing something before everyone else or not. _Probably not,_ he conceded. Especially seeing as it had landed him with what felt like three cracked ribs, serious back pain and sprained wrists. It was hard to feel smug when you couldn't move without something hurting.

Fury still seemed pretty focussed on his conversation with Hill so Stark turned his attention to the God of Thunder, who stood, as opposed to sat, by the door. His wide shoulders and imposing height filled up the space in the room and, ignoring the pun, his expression was thunderous. A deep frown was carved into Thor's face, and his eyebrows were furrowed in seemingly deep concentration. He had a hand on his chin, his elbow supported by his other arm crossed over his torso. As Tony finished his quiet assessment of Thor (trying not to think about the fact that this was the man who's _baby brother_ had just been rutting against him like a cat in heat), Fury turned away from Agent Hill and addressed the table:

"Thor has just informed me that Loki Laufeyson has escaped from his imprisonment on Asgard." His statement was met with a quiet chorus of mutters and exclamations of 'what?' and 'how?' that rang around the room from both SHIELD agents and Avengers. Luckily no one paid any attention to either Tony or Steve, so no one noticed their distinct lack of surprise. They made eye contact and silently communicated the questions that had been plaguing them the second they'd walked into the room; _which one of us will cave first and admit that Loki was downstairs barely ten minutes ago? Will either of us accidentally add that he was playing tonsil tennis with Tony? Will either of us mention that he was clearly winning?_

"I do not know how he escaped," Thor said, his loud deep voice ringing in the air. "Loki is a master of magic, I fear he is more powerful than we assumed, and was thus able to escape his bindings." Thor shook his head, obviously perplexed and angry at being thwarted by his trickster brother _again_. "I do not know where he went, only that he travelled to Midgard." Tony glanced back to Steve and found the captain staring back at him, a vague hint of panic in his eyes. Captain America was not one to keep valuable information from the team, in fact, the very thought of doing such a thing usually made him feel physically sick. Just by looking at him Tony could see that he was about to crack and blurt everything out in a spectacular flood of word vomit.

So Tony decided it was probably best to take the bull by the horns. If he left it to Steve, he knew the man out of time would automatically switch into report delivery mode and everyone would know about Tony's 'fraternization' within the minute. And he _really_ didn't feel like answering questions about his sexuality from Clint Barton; neither was he particularly keen on getting arrested. Plus, he just _knew_ someone would ask "But what about Pepper?" With everything happening so fast (and being so incredibly _fucked up_) he hadn't even had time to process that he had technically cheated on his girlfriend with a Norse God, and he didn't really want to talk about that with the team _when he hadn't even_ _thought about it himself_.

So yeah, letting Cap handle things was probably a bad idea.

"I know where he went," he blurted out. He was almost interrupted by Fury's "What?" -echoed by pretty much everyone around the room, with the exception of Steve of course, who just looked surprised that Tony had broken first- but he soldiered on. He decided it was probably best to explain things quickly, like ripping off a Band-Aid.

"He just suddenly showed up in my lab less than an hour ago, I have no fucking clue why, we exchanged a few words, then a few blows, then Cap came in and saved the day and Loki did his little vanishing trick." No one said anything for a second as they processed what Tony had just said.

The silence was broken when Fury asked incredulously "You engaged in hand-to-hand combat with _Loki Laufeyson_ _without your fucking suit_?" His sole eye was trained on Tony. "Are you fucking crazy?"

"That's what I said!" Steve exclaimed, his hand gesturing a 'finally, someone agrees with me!' Tony was about to shout out _if someone uses the phrase hand-to-hand combat one more time I swear to God…_when Natasha asked:

"Why didn't you immediately sound an alarm?" Her head was cocked slightly to the side, and the billionaire just _knew_ she had suspicions.

"I was trying to see if I could get him to tell me how he escaped," he lied effortlessly. _Yes_, he thought, _it was obviously because of that, and not at all because you secretly wanted to see if Loki's tongue felt as good in your mouth as it looked running over his lips. _"And then when things got violent…well, I kinda had my hands tied." _Or pinned, to the floor, as Loki straddled you._ Jesus he needed to stop thinking about it, the fact that the memories alone were getting him hot under the collar freaked him the fuck out. Because Tony Stark was _not_ gay. At that his mind immediately challenged him by presenting a memory of Loki, hard and flush against him, mouth, teeth and tongue claiming and possessing. He almost had to slap himself to snap out of it. _Get a grip! _He growled inwardly. _Not gay!_

Fury turning to Steve and asking whether or not Loki mentioned where he was going or anything that could hint to what the God of mischief had planned interrupted Tony's inner turmoil. He tuned back into their conversation, pushing all indecent thoughts of Loki firmly out of mind.

"No, Sir," Steve replied, "When I arrived at the lab he said he'd 'be back' before simply disappearing. He didn't even try to use force or magic against me, even though I would have been an easy target seeing as I didn't have my shield." Steve looked Fury directly in the eye when he spoke and no part of him at all indicated that he was lying, or at least withholding some facts. Tony was surprised to see that the Captain could actually keep a straight face, and he felt a little warmth in his chest at the thought that Steve was not telling his superior information, and therefore going against his better judgment, not to mention years of army mentality, just because Tony had asked him not to. He felt a little uncomfortable at the amount of loyalty that took. He flashed the Cap a quick smile of thanks when he caught his eye.

"Thor, any ideas what the fuck your crazy-ass brother is up to now?" Fury asked, his eye locked onto Tony's briefly and for a second he thought he was somehow busted, but within the next second Fury had turned his gaze to the demigod by the door.

"This behaviour is unusual for Loki," Thor frowned, his hand still on his chin, a pensive look in his eyes.

"Breaking free from his prison, suddenly coming to Earth, and causing havoc with the Avengers. Yeah you're right, that's not like Loki at all," Clint snorted, leaning back in his chair.

"What I mean to say is, his act of only visiting Anthony, and not slaying him when he was most vulnerable, is the most intriguing part." Thor replied, scratching his chin. "I do not know why he acted in such a manner. I fear he has something planned for the Man of Iron." He stared gravely at Tony's face, and Tony swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing slightly. He shouldn't have found the idea that Loki had something planned for him more arousing than he did alarming, but he did. Oops.

"Well, when we find him, you can ask him what his plans are yourself," Fury said and suddenly his voice switched to ordering-everyone-around mode. "Rogers, Banner, Thor, I want you to scout the city on foot and try to find him, Romanoff and Barton you'll take the Quinjet. We're currently trying to track him using every device we can, but we'll apply a manual approach as well. Maybe if he's interested in starting trouble, he'll come looking for you. We'll keep you updated via comms.

'Stark, I want you to start working on an alarm that detects when Loki enters a premises, because I'm sure we're all pretty agitated by how fucking easy it was for him to get in to one of our most _supposedly_ secure locations. I want a prototype immediately."

"Roger that," Tony said dryly, doing a mock salute with two fingers. In fact he had no intention of devoting all his time to the alarm. He was sure J.A.R.V.I.S could collect enough data from Loki's residual magic left in the lab to start developing something straight away. Tony, in the mean time, would be too busy working on other equations and calculations, and researching. He was hell bent on solving the puzzle that had been dropped into his lap.

"Class dismissed, get the fuck out of here," Fury growled, before turning and striding out of the room, Agent Hill following behind.

-**IIWT-**

An hour later, back in the lab, J.A.R.V.I.S was successfully running test simulations on the teleportation sensing alarm. The prototype would be built and ready within the hour, which incidentally gave Tony plenty of time to get investigating.

He'd spent the last thirty minutes, whilst his AI had been busy working on schematics, becoming an expert on the science of attraction and sketching out rough drafts of calculations and tests he'd be using to explore his theories. Now he was ready to play.

He decided to begin with a blood test, so that he could measure his oxytocin and serotonin levels. Oxytocin, he had learned, was known as the 'love' hormone, as it was released during intercourse or childbirth, and was responsible for feelings of closeness and intimacy. Serotonin affected arousal. Tony had a feeling (well he was actually blindly hoping) that his levels were just naturally and coincidentally high today, and therefore he couldn't _technically_ be held accountable for his reaction to Loki's behaviour, seeing as it was obviously just his body being ridiculous. He took a blood sample, wincing a little as the needle pierced his skin, before taking the vial and placing it in a docking device connected to his computer. With a few taps of his fingers on the touch-screen keyboard, the program was up and running, all he had to do was wait.

The second test he had planned was to gauge his heart rate, and see if it increased when he thought of the God of Lies and Mischief. Ideally it would have worked more efficiently if he was actually _around_ Loki, but seeing as that usually resulted in him being thrown out of a window or molested on his workbench, he decided to leave that variable firmly isolated for the time being, _thank you very much_.

"J.A.R.V.I.S, update me on the alarm," Tony ordered, glancing at the progress bar on the blood test before swivelling in his chair to the other side of his desk, reaching over to grab the heart monitor he had built ten minutes before. Yeah, he could have _bought one_, but that would have taken time, and what was the point in being a genius billionaire playboy philanthropist if you couldn't build your own heart monitor that can be plugged in to your tech and works specifically with your system software in less than 16 minutes?

"Progress is looking encouraging, Sir. Construction of the device will commence shortly." The familiar disembodied voice replied.

"Cool," Tony muttered, nodding his head in approval as he slid his shirt off and began wrapping the transmitter belt around his chest. This was the other benefit of designing his own heart rate monitor; it meant that he was able to customize it to take into account his arc reactor. The belt had a circular hole at the front that fitted around the reactor, and stuck incredibly close to the skin. He had made the transmitter sensitive enough that it should have been able to pick up the electrical activity caused by his heart muscle contracting, despite the fact that the detector plate was not directly above the organ. He'd checked and re-checked the Math, and he was pretty sure it was going to work out fine; he just needed to test it. His fingers fiddled with the receiver that was plugged in via USB to one of his computers. It's job was to pick up the electromagnetic signal coming from the belt that contained the heart rate data and send it through the wire to the computer, where it would be displayed, along with billions of other facts and figures. Pretty simple really. Well, simple for the guy who had made the Iron Man suit from bits of scrap and deconstructed weaponry in the middle of a scorching desert.

"Your blood test results are ready, Sir," J.A.R.V.I.S said and Tony's head snapped up to stare at the screen. His shoulders sagged a little in disappointment. His levels were completely normal. "There appears to have been a small peak in oxytocin and serotonin earlier, Sir, but this was most likely caused by your body's natural response to your _interaction_ with Mr. Laufeyson." If his AI had had a face, Tony was pretty sure it would have been smirking at that point. _Well, fuck, _he thought. His response to Lokiwas apparently not due to a hormone imbalance after all, but due to _natural attraction_. Like that wasn't the most singularly terrifying thought he'd ever had? How could he be attracted to Loki _fucking_ Laufeyson? The man who was not only as mad as a hatter, who enjoyed trying to subjugate entire races and who killed for fun, but who also was a fucking _man_. A.k.a someone who did not possess a vagina. How could Tony possibly be _attracted _to a _man _–a male demigod –whatever? He would have to take his heart rate to make sure he was in fact _attracted _(man that word was hard for his mind to get around) to Loki, only then could he make arrangements for his suicide.

"Okay, J.A.R.V.I.S, fire up the receiver, let's get some data." He took a deep breath and when the computer beeped at him to know the heart rate monitor was ready, he began to think about board meetings and Fury's lectures and signing documents… all the boring things he could think of just to get a base level to work with, an idea of what his normal heart rate was like. The monitor continued it's steady beeping for a minute, and Tony's eyes traced the even peaks and pits on the screen. Then, he let himself flood his mind with images of Loki. He concentrated his thoughts on the memory of Loki against him, of his kisses, the taste of his mouth, the sound of his voice, raspy in his ear. The result was immediate. The green line peaked then fell dramatically, and the beeping became rapid staccatos of sound, almost blurring into each other to form one long high pitched squeak. Tony cursed and typed out the sequence on the keyboard that ended the monitoring. The beeping stopped.

"Fuck." he called out to his empty lab, bringing the heels of his hands up to rub his eyes.

"Not the results you wanted, Sir?" J.A.R.V.I.S asked, barely attempting to sound innocent.

"Shut up, J.A.R.V.I.S," Tony growled removing his hands from his face and moving to look back at the screen. "It was one trial," he muttered to himself, "Probably just my body subconsciously acting like that on purpose to see if the machine worked, observer effect and all that…I just need more trials…J.A.R.V.I.S, run it again." He closed his eyes and sat back into his chair, taking several calming breaths.

"As you wish, Sir," came the reply, and then the sound of steady beeping filled the air again. He was thinking about mundane things once more when he felt the pressure in the room change, and his ears pop.

"Sir…" J.A.R.V.I.S said haltingly, and Tony snapped his eyes open and wheeled round to see none other than fucking _Loki_ standing barely ten feet away from him. Tony faintly heard the sudden increase in frequency of beeping coming from the heart rate monitor behind him, and mentally noted that, no, the previous reading probably _wasn't _an anomaly, he was probably just screwed. In which way he wasn't too sure of at that point. He also realised abruptly that he was now sitting half naked with a mass murderer in the room. The same mass murderer who, merely hours previously, had had his tongue down Tony's throat. He heard the beeping increase again as his heart rate peaked once more. _Jesus Christ,_ he thought,_ what the fuck is wrong with me?_

Loki's mouth was curved into that familiar devilish grin but his eyebrows furrowed slightly in curiosity at the racket Tony's computer was making. The mortal flailed his arms about behind him, his cheeks burning red, desperately trying to shut off the heart monitor without turning his back on the demigod. He typed in the wrong sequence and a loud honking started echoing around the room, complete with red flashing lights. Loki looked like he was about to actually laugh out loud as Tony called out, his hands still scrambling over keys, "Fuck! Shit! J.A.R.V.I.S shut it off!"

Barely-audible-over-the-sirens, J.A.R.V.I.S said, "As you wish, Sir," before the room fell into a blessed silence.

Upon hearing the disembodied voice, Loki had started, eyes immediately on the ceiling. "What was that?" he muttered, and Tony almost fucking _laughed_ at the fact that the God of Mischief was getting all panicky not because of a team of fucking superheroes, but because of a _computer program_ –that is, he _would_ have laughed, had he not been too busy hyperventilating in sheer panic.

"That's… J.A.R.V.I.S," he managed to gasp out in between large inhalations of oxygen, "Artificial Intelligence." Cue big deep breath. "He runs the house." And another. He kept his eyes trained on the demigod, practically feeling the rush of adrenaline as it coursed through his veins, his fight or flight instinct kicking in. The question was, would he fight or fly?

"Fascinating," Loki whispered, his voice raspy with, wait, was that…_wonder?_ He gazed around at the ceiling, almost as if he was expecting some weird contraption fresh out of "Portal" to descend (not that he would have known what "Portal" was mind you, but the analogy remained accurate).

Tony was unsure how to act in such a situation. No previous life experience had prepared him for the current circumstances. One of the most dangerous men in existence was interested in his AI.

He figured he might as well introduce them. "J.A.R.V.I.S, this is Loki Laufeyson, notorious super-villain, and general pain in the Avengers' ass. Loki, this is J.A.R.V.I.S, my greatest invention."

"You flatter me, Sir," the AI said dryly, before addressing Loki directly, "It's a pleasure to meet you Mr. Laufeyson." The whole time J.A.R.V.I.S spoke, Loki stood smiling up at the ceiling in apparent amazement, and Tony had to admit, he looked_ good_ when he smiled. More carefree and innocent, less dangerous, unhinged and filled with blood lust.

"The pleasure is mine, J.A.R.V.I.S," Loki replied, inclining his head in acknowledgement. Tony remained bewildered at the scene playing out before him. He was considering interrupting them before they began _befriending_ each other or something else that was just as crazy, but it turned out he didn't have to, Loki turned his attention from the ceiling to the mortal and fixed him with a heated stare.

"Er, Hi," Tony said warily, as the demigod began to freaking _stalk_ towards him in a way that was altogether far too predatory to be socially acceptable.

"If I asked you what the fuck you're doing here, I don't suppose you'd answer, huh?" He wheeled back in his chair until it met with his desk, once again trying to maximise space between him and the demigod,fully aware that he was still very much topless. He wondered if all their meetings would be spent like this: him trying to get as far away as possible and Loki forever stalking closer and closer, a perpetual game of cat and mouse.

"I said I'd be back," Loki replied simply, a smile playing on his lips. Despite all of Tony's desperate efforts to deny whatever his feelings for Loki were, he couldn't help but admit that the smile was _freaking sexy._ It was sly, it was mischievous, and it sent blood running to all the wrong places.

"…Right," Tony nodded, subconsciously wetting his lips. He saw Loki's eyes dart down to his mouth then back to his eyes and colour flooded Tony's cheeks once more. He reached a hand up to his chest and scratched underneath the transmitter belt near the edge of his arc reactor. Loki's eyes traced the movement, and a small line appeared between in eyebrows.

"What is that?" he demanded.

"What is what?" Tony asked back, snatching his hand away from his chest and moving it to rest casually on the armrest of his office chair. "The blue glowing circular thing or the black belt thing?"

"You are always so eloquent, Mr. Stark," the demigod smirked, inching closer until they were only three feet apart.

"Fuck you, Loki" Tony retorted. A second later Loki was standing in front of his chair, leaning down over him, his hands once again wrapped round the now familiar part of Tony's wrists, pinning them to the arm rests. His face edged into Tony's personal space and the proximity, mixed with the spicy scent of the demigod before him, made the mortal feel light headed.

"Oh I fully intend you to," Loki whispered seductively, voice low, tilting his head up so that his lips brushed against Tony's. "But first, tell me what the black belt does."

"No," Tony stammered, his heart beating faster than a drum and he realised with sudden horror that he was very, _very_ hard.

There was no way in hell he was just going to _explain_ everything to the God of Lies. What would he even say? _Oh yeah, this is a heart monitor, I've been using it to see if I'm attracted to you, but seeing as you were practically sat on my cock earlier, I guess you already know the answer to that._

"Oh? Then, tell me what the blue disc does," Loki muttered, his teeth now grazing along Tony's jaw. The mortal subconsciously titled his head back, letting out a little gasp of air. Fuck, he needed space, he needed more oxygen, his head was fuzzy and he could barely think straight. What was going on? How could Loki affect him like this?

"Double no," he mumbled, rearing his head back, away from Loki's mouth, "definitely, _definitely_, no". The _last_ thing he wanted to do was explain the arc reactor, the thing keeping him alive, to freaking _Loki Laufeyson_. In fact, he was pretty sure that was the worst idea in the history of ideas. Who knows when he'd try and use that knowledge against him? Suddenly he felt Loki's long fingers grab his chin and move his face so that it was an inch from the demigod's, those blue eyes boring into his own again, and he felt like he was going to spontaneously combust because his body was burning with so much _heat_.

"You're not being very fair, Stark," Loki crooned, eyes bright. "You will explain one to me, or else I will rip that curious blue disc out of your chest and examine it myself. That or crush it into dust. Seeing as _that_ is the object of the two that looks as if it is physically attached to your body, I'm sure it is the item you would least like to see pulverised." He punctuated his threat with a little smile, and the word _psychopath_ flashed across Tony's mind.

"The belt…" Tony began immediately, and he swore he saw a look of disappointment flash across Loki's face. Probably because the arc reactor intrigued the tall man more, and hey, fair enough, it's blue and _shiny_, but you know, _tough shit_, Tony thought. Loki had given the billionaire a choice, and clearly he was going to pick the one that yeah, was probably going to cause the most embarrassment, but it was also the one that wasn't going to result in his immediate, or near enough immediate, death.

He coughs. "The belt measures my heart rate, my uh, my pulse… when I do, _certain things_, or think about… _certain things_. You could say it measures excitement. I built it this evening."

"You built this?" Loki asked, and after seeing the mortal nod, he released his hold on Tony's chin in order to trace a finger along the black material, eyes following his finger's movements. He seemed _impressed_. Not that Tony noticed, of course, seeing as he was too busy trying not to shiver at the feel of Loki touching his chest through only one layer of material. "Show me how it works," the demigod whispered, looking up at him through his lashes. And at the sight of that the only coherent thought going through Tony's mind was a mantra of fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, _fuck_.

Tony was quite tempted to simply refuse, but he prided himself on his genius, and he was smart enough to know that if he _did_ refuse then Loki would just beat the crap out of him again, or maybe even ask J.A.R.V.I.S to explain the machine for him instead. Neither of those scenarios appealed to the billionaire, so he thought he'd just comply with the demigod's wishes. And hey, being the first out of himself and Steve to tell Fury about Loki, and _then_ showing the God of Mischief the machine he built to measure his attraction to that same God? He was being all kinds of brave today. Hell, he probably deserved some kind of medal.

"You'll have to move away for a second to fully appreciate its functioning," Tony muttered softly. The demigod backed away five feet or so without a word, just silently studying the mortal. Tony closed his eyes and spent an entire minute calming his rapid heartbeat, solely focussing on gardening, invoices, dinner parties with people he hated, chick flicks, slow cars, everything he could think of that was mundane, dull and boring.

"Okay, activate heart monitor please, J.A.R.V.I.S," He said out loud. "But keep the volume low this time, I don't want my ears bleeding." The AI remained silent, apparently intelligent enough to know that's what was best, and Tony heard the device whir into life. He began repeating the roll call of dreary things, whilst paying some attention to the steady beeping of the monitor, just to make sure it was constant.

When he was sure that his heart was thudding at a normal rate in his chest, he took a deep breath, letting it rattle out of his lungs in a rush of carbon dioxide, before opening his eyes and settling them on Loki. The increase in heart rate was just as instantaneous as before. He could feel his heart practically battering against his arc reactor as icy blue eyes found his and he couldn't decipher whether the ringing in his ears was coming from the incessant beeping of the monitor, which although much quieter now, was still just as annoying, or from the blood pounding furiously in his head.

"Oh," Loki said, his eyes widening in understanding. Then his face stretched into a terrifying, impish grin as he said once more: "_Oh._"

**A/N****:** _Please R&R, npeg and I love hearing your thoughts and opinions. Also please go read npeg's amazing Stove fic: Drowning In A Sea of Stars, it's simply beautiful. And I'm not just saying that because I'm related to the author._


	5. What I Want And What I Need

**A/N: **_Hello our lovelies! We return to you with a chapter filled to the brim with delicious smutty smut smut, (although no actual lemons of course, what do you take us for? We do not rush these things). This is probably my (Trashy's) fave chapter, also one of the trickiest to write, but as per npeg saved the day (because she is phenomenal and just xjshjkgbj -so proud *wipes tear from eye*) ANYWAY, big big BIG thanks to everyone who has read, reviewed, favourited, alerted, WE LOVE YOU. Seriously, every time we get an email notification our hearts go all warm and fuzzy and we just want to pick you all up and smoosh you... anyway! I shall stop with this ridiculously long A/N and let you guys get on with it, things get pretty...heated in this chapter, so Enjoy! _

**Disclaimer:** _I own nothing._

Loki closed the gap between them, his smile widening even further when his movement caused Tony's heart rate to peak again. He stopped just far enough away from the self-proclaimed genius that they weren't physically touching, but if he were to move even slightly, his legs would brush against Tony's knees. The billionaire didn't know why such a simple movement appeared so tantalizing, but then again he didn't seem to know a lot of things recently. Seated as he was, Loki towered over him, a pillar of gold metal and black leather, and Tony had to crane his head back to keep eye contact. He sat rooted in place, taking deep breaths in and out, desperately trying to calm his heart rate down. There was no way he was going to give Loki the _satisfaction_ of seeing the true extent to which the demigod affected him, although he did realise that it was probably a little too late for that…

"_Fascinating_," Loki purred, folding at the waist to bend over him, bringing their faces into close proximity. The frequency of beeping increased again and the demigod's eyes crinkled at the edges with mirth. "Oh I like this…" he grinned sadistically.

"I should…uh…probably switch that off now…" Tony mumbled, words clumsy from his irregular breathing. He turned his chair around to access the keyboard but a hand suddenly flashed into his field of vision and gripped one of the armrests, spinning the chair back to face the hand's owner.

"No." Loki said forcefully. His lips were no longer stretched into a grin, but it had not completely vanished from his face; shadows of it remained in the upturned corners of his mouth. _He's enjoying this far too much_, Tony growled inwardly, trying to spin the chair again. But it was no use; the demigod's hold was too strong. "No, I think not, Stark. I would much rather have some _fun_ with this," Loki whispered, his eyes glinting mischievously.

"J.A.R.V.I.S!" Tony yelped as the demigod closed in on him. He had to raise his voice to combat the sound his computer was now making, and a part of him was surprised he hadn't passed out his heart appeared to be beating so fast. "Turn off…the monitor!" He struggled to get the sentence out as Loki closed in to run his tongue over Tony's lower lip in a slow, deliberate sweep. _Fuck…_

"Pardon, Sir?" J.A.R.V.I.S asked, barely audible over the clamour coming from the computer's speakers. "Terribly sorry, but I can't quite hear you?" The voice oozed with a feigned innocence that barely concealed what Tony angrily recognised as amusement.

"J.A.R.V.I.S!" Tony panted, his heart monitor now going crazy due to the sheer _panic_ he was feeling, "MONITOR…OFF!"

"I _am_ sorry, Sir, but due to the erratic nature of your breathing I cannot I recognise your voice command. I'm afraid I cannot hear you all that well, the heart monitor's audio output is rather loud." The disembodied voice rang out, and Tony saw Loki grin ear to ear at the answer. This was betrayal! This was sacrilege! But upon seeing the mischievous delight glinting in the demigod's eyes, he found he almost didn't mind... _Oh god, _he thought, _I'm going crazy… my body can't take this much stress… I'm falling apart…_

"J.A.R.V.I.S, turn the fucking thing _off_ or turn the fucking volume _down_ or _something_, _so help me_!" He shouted desperately. He was leaning as far away from Loki as the chair he was pinned to would let him, as the demigod was apparently trying to undress him with his eyes.

"What was that, Sir?" The AI practically fucking _snickered_. "Turn the volume _up_? As you wish, Sir. That would probably be the best course of action. In any case, it will drown out your…moans, Sir." And with that the beeping suddenly increased in volume, and J.A.R.V.I.S faded out. Tony realised, with not a small amount of anger, that even if he called out again, the robot that ran his house wouldn't answer. Oh, they were going to have _serious_ words later. And by words, Tony meant he would be ripping out the AI's wiring with his bare hands.

Loki let out a gruff chuckle, and Tony immediately turned his attention back to him. Hands firmly planted either side of Tony's body; the demigod was still bent over him, his head tilted to one side, apparently studying him with great concentration. His lips stretched into a smirk.

"This machine…" he began with a casual tone, his gaze languidly tracing the line of Tony's neck, before sliding over his collarbones and down to the belt, and Tony suddenly realised what it was like to be eye-fucked "…it measures your heart rate, correct?"

"Yes," Tony managed to say quietly, not yet willing to completely lose his dignity and sit panting in the chair like all the wanton whores he'd had over the years, regardless of how _incredibly tempting_ that thought was…

"… Which, if I'm not entirely mistaken, increases whenever you are in my presence…?" Loki continued, his smirk broadening, obviously thoroughly enjoying this torture. Tony's eyes narrowed, and he kept his mouth firmly closed this time. He wasn't going to let Loki have his fun so easily. The satisfied smile abruptly disappeared and the demigod's eyes sparkled dangerously as he growled out, low and suddenly menacing, "_Answer me, Stark_."

The heart monitor spiked again, essentially answering the question for him, but Tony still muttered a yes, forced out of him though it was. The demigod's smirk returned in a flash, and all Tony could think was_ jeez, what a head-fuck, his facial expressions change faster than I can blink_, but when he saw the look creeping into Loki's eyes, Tony's heart rate picked up again, and sirens flashed in his head, screaming _oh God, not good, not good, not good!_

"So…_Mr. Stark_," crooned the demigod, leaning closer until his mouth was against Tony's ear, his breath hot on the mortal's tingling skin. "What will happen if I do _this_?" He took Tony's earlobe into his mouth and _sucked_.

"Ah!" Tony gasped involuntarily, and the beeping of the machine increased tenfold, becoming a stream of high-pitched noise, peaks and troughs flying across the screen in rapid succession. His head snapped back and his fingers dug into the armrests. Laughter trickled into his ear as Loki relinquished his attack and a shiver ran through him at the sound. Damn his body _to hell_ it was reacting on its own, and Tony wished that he could cross his legs, but the demigod's own limbs obstructed him from doing so… It was an awful mixture of awkward and terrifyingly arousing, and Tony was again bombarded with the sound of his own frantic heartbeat increasing.

"_Interesting_…" the demigod chuckled, bringing his face back to hover over Tony's own, holding his gaze. He wore the biggest smile, and it severely _irked_ Tony that it was his reactions to Loki that caused him such unabashed amusement. He was about to say something cutting in order to get some leverage, when Loki suddenly whispered,

"And if I do _this_…?"

And he lifted a hand and closed it gently around Tony's neck. The billionaire's heart rate rocketed instantly, connotations of _strangulation_ and _being thrown out of a window_, things he now automatically attached with someone putting a hand around his throat, surging to the front of his mind. But then Loki began to trail his fingers, feather light, down over his collarbones and over the top of his torso, and Tony relaxed, just slightly. When the fingers reached the arc reactor, however, Tony almost had another mini heart attack, but the demigod seemed content not to probe, physically or verbally, for answers about the curious blue disc in his chest, as he almost completely avoided the reactor; his fingers skirting around the edges and over the black belt encasing it. Tony's ears were ringing from the incessant beeping of the monitor, and a small part of his brain, far removed from the current happenings, was patting itself on the back at how well the machine was doing under this stress-testing.

Suddenly he was staring, dazed, into cobalt eyes, unsure of when they had made eye contact again, and the intensity in them woke a feeling deep in him, a fierce ache, hot and primal, uncoiling in his gut. _Fuck_, he thought, _this should_ not _be so_ hot_. I mean, my God, this is better than when Pepper and I…_

And with that thought he sobered instantly, like he had been doused with cold water. His first _committed_ adult relationship and here he was screwing around with someone else. Who just, as an aside, a teensy tiny footnote on the entire frankly _ridiculous_ situation, also happened to be an enemy of the Avengers, and one of the biggest threats the planet had faced in _centuries_. Well hey, when Tony Stark fucked up, he really had to fuck up big, didn't he? _What was he fucking doing?_

He abruptly braced his hands on Loki's chest, stopping him, and tried to push him away.

"No, Loki, _we have to stop_," he panted, trying in vain to get his voice steady, but the demigod just smiled at him.

Then Tony really shoved him, "Seriously, Loki, _stop_."

Forced backwards, the demigod's blue eyes narrowed, and a small growl escaped his lips as he snatched his long fingers away from Tony's naked skin.

Chest heaving, Tony rubbed his hands on the fabric of his jeans, irritably noting that his palms were slick with sweat, and told him, "We can't do this, I have someone..."

And at that Loki merely raised his eyebrows. Then, much to Tony's surprise, he tipped his head back and laughed, a deep rumbling guffaw, as if it was the funniest thing he had heard in aeons. The sound was bizarre coming from someone of such slight build, and Tony didn't know how to react. If nothing else, he couldn't stand being laughed at.

The demigod then rubbed his lower lip with a slim thumb, and Tony couldn't stop his eyes following the motion, skin still tingling.

Loki chuckled again, this time low in his throat. "Do you honestly think I care about that?" he mused, "What a ridiculous notion."

He leant forward, trailing fingers along Tony's abdomen once more, shivers sparking uncontrollably in their wake. When the demigod spoke again, he spoke softly, and Tony had to strain to hear his words over the din of the monitor.

"You presume much to think that this is anything more than a little fun, Stark. It is merely a way for me to idly pass the time." As he inched back in his seat, Tony heard a smile enter his voice, "I am not here to _wed you_, Stark; to take you to wife. Oh no," he murmured softly, fingers tracing languid patterns across Tony's skin, stomach, to chest, to throat, and back again, "I am here to seduce you; to bed you, perhaps. Do not expect anything else to come from this. It is what it is. Nothing more."

The beeping of the monitor slowed, but only slightly.

"Unless…" and the demigod raised an eyebrow in question, a wicked look in his eye, "Is that something you would want, Stark? To be bound to me?"

The sounds from the monitor rocketed deafeningly once more, and despite the myriad of _shockingly_ wanton images that the word _bound_ had conjured in his mind, Tony lifted up his hands to frantically wave _no_ at what the demigod was insinuating because, dear God, it was too awful to think about. _Also_, it suddenly occurred to him, _did Loki just assume that I'd be the _female_ in this pairing?_ Because that was just utterly insulting, considering his thighs couldn't be much thicker than one of Tony's arms…

His absurd train of thought cut off abruptly as Loki's tone changed, becoming colder, instructive almost, and the demigod's hand snapped up from tracing patterns on Tony's stomach to roughly grasp the back of his neck. Tony flinched in shock, and the line on the monitor spiked violently.

"Although," the demigod almost purred, "the only reason that I am not at this very moment torturing you to the farthest reaches of your capacity to withstand pain, is that I find you rather…" he cocked his head to one side, like a king cobra poised, considering him, "_intriguing_, for a mortal."

He bent his head to Tony's chest, just above the black belt encircling it, and pressing his mouth against the bare skin, he confessed, "In a way, I suppose I see myself in you; in your intellect, your curiosity, your… _passions_."

As Loki slowly increased the pressure of his hold on Tony's neck, the beeping of the machine increased sharply in unison.

"That, and your reactions to every trifling thing I do are, well, how should I describe it, _endearing_, perhaps?" He smirked.

Leaning down to run tongue and teeth along Tony's jaw, he murmured against his skin, "Do not think I manipulate you only for your knowledge…"

Tony's breath came in short, hurried gasps, panic rising at the tightening grip of the demigod's hand around his throat. He could feel his heart racing under the belt round his chest, and thanks to J.A.R.V.I.S, he could hear it too, the monitor still screeching loudly at his back. Hell, everybody in the entire fucking facility could probably hear it by now, and yet that didn't scare him as much as the iron grip around his throat. His heartbeat was a cacophony in the speakers, a crazed rhythm of panic and bizarre want, though Tony was loath to admit it, despite what his tests had "proved".

At the exact moment another thought occurred to him, the demigod gave voice to it, as if he had read Tony's mind, and maybe he could, Tony didn't know. Breathing against his ear, Loki spoke softly, with a cruel edge to his words, "I expect you understand that if I so wished, I could snap your neck in an instant. In fact, it would be all too easy."

The demigod tilted his head to one side, obviously amused as the mortal's chest rose and fell rapidly at the patent threat.

Loki placed his other hand on Tony's stomach, and felt him shudder violently under his fingers. "Your body burns and your heart races at the very sight of me, Stark, your own machine has testified to that," Loki murmured, his eyes glinting with mischief, and the demigod had never deserved the title he held more than he did in that moment. The manic beeping of the monitor ringing in his ears, Tony tried in vain to swallow past the lump in his throat, mouth dry as sandpaper, and despite his fear, he felt tendrils of desire curl up in his belly, licking across his skin. Somehow, he was enjoying this. Beyond the fear he felt of the hand around his throat, Tony's skin ached and burned for the demigod's cold touch. Whatever he truly thought about it, if he could form a thought at all, his body wanted Loki. Tony felt himself pressing into his touch, and his fingers ached from clutching so tightly at the arms of his chair. He didn't trust himself to speak, didn't trust his tongue to keep his need a secret, though he noted dryly that the monitor had essentially put paid to _that_ concern. He twisted in place, unwilling to give away the fact that all he wanted to do was end the torture of the inches that separated their bodies. He wanted to pull the demigod down flush against him, feel his mouth hot against his own, his body lithe and hard on top of him. He wanted to trace the planes of his queerly cold skin, to touch and taste every inch of him, to savour and memorise every angle, every surface, every join. His scent was like the hint of ice on cold air after snow, fresh pine and still darkness, earth after rain. It enveloped him, and Tony briefly thought of mountains, of cold expanses, stretches of earth, of desert plains and stars at night when all was quiet and still. And he lost himself in those deep, dark eyes.

And then, Loki lifted the hand from his stomach, fingers flexing in some bizarre pattern through the air as he turned his palm, and simply uttered the word, "_Silence_."

Tony's ears stung as what must have been magic hissed and crackled in the air around him, and to his utter shock, the heart monitor fell abruptly silent, though the screen still flashed with the spikes of Tony's pounding heart. His mind raced. _How had Loki done that?_ If the demigod's magic worked on his technology, if it was capable of shutting it down, incapacitating it, then he was well and truly finished the next time he faced him in a fight…

Suddenly, Loki swept down, his face stopping scarce inches above Tony's own, and all rational thought fled as his mind went blank with shock, and he felt his body stir of its own accord.

Tony's eyes flickered from mouth, to eyes, to hands, and mouth again. His breath had escaped him, lungs gasping for breath that wouldn't come, and his heart constricted in his chest. _What the fuck is happening to me?_

And then the demigod _growled_, and the sound sent a shiver of something primal, something feral, racing through Tony's body. It sparked a need in him, too strong to be ignored. It scared him, shocked him, but he was powerless to resist the undercurrent in the cold gaze of the demigod before him. His eyes were ice, and those eyes burned into him with such an intensity that the sudden violent wave of desire that they awoke in the pit of his stomach eclipsed even the suffocating fear they inspired; it swallowed him whole.

Suddenly, Tony _wanted_, desperately, he wanted more than he had ever wanted anything. Desire threatened and consumed him, overpowered his judgement and his reason, and suddenly Tony was drowning in pools of cold blue.

The smile that crept into the demigod's eyes told Tony that he knew exactly the reaction he was causing in the mortal's mind and body, and as Loki's fingers tightened on his skin, Tony realised he was going to do something about it.

He crushed his face to Loki's in a frantic rush of hot breath and violent need, and moaned when he felt the god's cool touch respond in kind. His naked skin was awash with the burning cold of Loki's hands against it. Tony couldn't think, couldn't breathe, couldn't speak, but all he knew was that he needed the demigod so much closer. He needed to feel that curiously cold skin slide against him, and the desire to press his whole body flush against Loki's raged through every fibre of his being. Suddenly, the demigod pushed forward onto the chair, straddling Tony as he did so. The sudden weight against his stomach, against his legs, and _God_, against his crotch, made Tony's head spin. That familiar delicious heat uncurled in his stomach, rushing through him, setting his skin alight. His sudden peak in body temperature meant Loki's skin felt all the colder against him, and he relished it, the difference sending jolts along his limbs, and when the demigod suddenly rolled his hips down against Tony's own, the mortal groaned, long and low, at the pressure hard against him, and Loki rewarded him with a slow, wicked smile. Tony reached up and seized him with both hands, fingers trickling over the plates of armour, metal and leather alike sliding under his grasp.

Something danced in the demigod's eyes as he felt Tony writhe beneath him, and he indulgently returned the mortal's fevered kisses with equal enthusiasm, hands trailing fire across his skin, capturing his mouth with hungry tongue and wicked teeth.

Tony's hands moved frantically over Loki's armour as he tried to unfasten it, itching to have the demigod's naked skin under his fingertips.

"Too…many…clothes…" he gasped out between kisses, "What the fuck…is this armour anyway...some kind of Asgardian chastity belt?" Loki chuckled into Tony's mouth and the mortal felt it reverberate down his throat and into his chest, sending another rush of heat through him like a tidal wave, because _Lord did the god have an intoxicating laugh_…Loki shifted on top of him and muttered something unintelligible as he broke away from Tony's lips and began mouthing his jaw and neck. Suddenly, Tony felt the armour slide undone beneath his hands. He opened his eyes to see it fall away just enough to reveal the pale planes of Loki's chest, and for a moment he sat stunned. Loki moved his head from the crook between Tony's neck and shoulder and leaned back to look at him. The mortal almost immediately tried to follow him, abandoning all previous concerns in the search for that sweet mouth and clever tongue.

But then Loki took one of Tony's hands and placed it palm down against his sternum, holding it there in a fierce grip. The billionaire stared at his hand on the demigod's chest, transfixed. Tony could feel Loki's heart pounding furiously through his skin. His eyes snapped up to meet with familiar icy blue in a stare that all but burned him, sending shivers down his spine. Behind him the heart monitor spiked once more. He slowly opened his mouth to speak.

Loki raised a hand to his mouth to halt him, and whispered softly, an icy hint of menace clad in silken tones, "Make no mistake, mortal, regardless of how I may wish to possess you, I _will_ have you tell me your secrets. You will lay bare your soul to me, in time." His fingers traced slowly along Tony's lips, sending tremors racing in their wake.

And suddenly Tony felt exposed. _Too _exposed. Here he was, with his very _heart_ laid out in a series of green peaks and troughs behind him, an open book just waiting to be read. He had lived his whole life behind carefully constructed masks, wrapping himself up in the safety of mystery and ambiguity like it was armour. Yet now the demigod had _literally_ threatened to prise his secrets from him, his darkest truths. He would be _unravelled_, and this scared him more than words could say.

But then again, he realised slowly, he wasn't the only one exposed. Because here Loki was, with _his_ heart beating underneath Tony's palm, speaking to him in a Morse code of heartbeats. And there they were, locked together in an embrace, legs entwined, and their eyes boring into one another's; and it frightened him. Surely Loki had not meant to bare himself in this way. It had to be a plot to get Tony to let down his defences, it had to be. Because to Tony this was no longer just a matter of thoughtless, senseless lust, a baseless physical reaction. This was an _invasion_. Regardless of his true motives, this _interaction_ broke down all the barriers and forced physicality into the form of _intimacy_. And Tony Stark did not do _intimacy_. Even with Pepper he'd maintained a certain amount of distance, never letting her get too close, never truly letting her in. He liked to keep himself firmly locked up, and no one, _no one_, especially not a fucking alien _demigod_, was allowed to pick open that lock. He snatched his hand away from Loki's grip.

But Loki was not about to let him stop. The demigod growled and pushed down on him, demanding hips and hungry mouth, capturing Tony's lips in a fierce, relentless kiss.

"Did I tell you to stop, _Stark_?" He growled, biting down on Tony's mouth, and the mortal yelped in shock at the sudden pain. Loki's eyes bore down into his, suddenly feral, demanding and unyielding, and he clamped down hard on Tony's wrists.

"_I am not finished with you yet_."

**A/N:** _And so! The plot thickens... The next chapter will be up soon(ish)...you know, once we've written it XD. Please review, we love hearing your thoughts and opinions! And don't forget to head on over to npeg's profile and read her amazing Steve/Tony fic: Drowning in a Sea of Stars, it's really, really fantastic, and I'm not just saying that because I'm her sister, much love and kissies, Trashy & npeg xoxox_


	6. I Will Shut Down

**A/N:** _Hay guys! We're so sorry for keeping you waiting for TWO WHOLE WEEKS. D': I (Trashy) had horrible writer's block and like no motivation and it was horrible and it took me every ounce of will to churn this bad boy out, then I handed over the wheel to npeg and as usual she saved the day with the fight scene (they are totally going to be her responsibility from now on) and finished the chapter off, making it possibly THE best one of the fic so far- not that I'm biased or anything! Big thanks to everyone who reviewed, favourited, story alerted, and read the fic, we love getting feed back and we love knowing that you're enjoying reading IIWT._

_So basically, get on and enjoy it! Although there isn't much smut in this chapter there is plenty of plot development: shit is going down._

**-IIWT-**

"_I am not finished with you yet_."

Tony was starting to not like this at all. His thoughts were so clouded that he couldn't think straight: he felt like someone had scooped his brains out of his head, put them in a blender, and then poured the mess back in. It was this distinct lack of cognitive control that had him so uneasy. Because he was used to having focus, he was used to having control, always. Even under the familiar fog of inebriation he could still build a jet engine from scratch if he wanted to. But this, this _effect_ the demigod had on him, it was worse than alcohol. It was debilitating.

So yeah, it was _probably_ best to just man up and admit that he was attracted to Loki, _extremely_ attracted, erection-straining-against-his-jeans attracted, and yes, he was aware that that was the only thing the old Tony had needed to justify fucking his latest conquest into the floor, but he wasn't the old Tony anymore. He was _dating_ someone. And, well, wasn't that just the reason for his confusion in a nutshell? He couldn't just throw caution to the wind and turn his conscience off, because in every touch, in every kiss, was the faintest comparison to Pepper's kisses, Pepper's touches. It also didn't help that Loki was a homicidal maniac and a sworn enemy of the team of superheroes Tony just happened to be part of. Not to mention that you know, he was, well, _male_.

Tony needed time. He needed space. And _God_, he needed Loki to just _not _be squirming so very deliciously on top of him. Most of all, Tony needed a clear head, and that was an absolute impossibility with the demigod sat astride him, because his mouth was on him, his voice surrounded him until his senses were smothered, and utterly unsurprisingly, it was incredibly hard to concentrate.

"Okay, I don't think you quite understand the definition of the word _no_," he muttered, moving his head back to pin Loki with a hard look, his wrists struggling to free themselves from the bindings of the demigod's hands. Then the demigod chuckled, and even that was enough to send a traitorous shudder trickling down his spine.

"Oh, I understand it perfectly, Stark." Loki replied, returning the mortal's stare with a cool indifference that fell as a film before the smouldering desire in his eyes, "What I cannot comprehend is why in all the Nine realms you would say such a thing, when you so clearly do not mean it." He rolled his hips to prove his point and Tony let out a little gasp at the contact; before he snapped his mouth shut and mentally told himself to keep his shit together.

"Well that's _clearly_ because I'm currently thinking with my _dick_, and not my _brain_," he ground out through clenched teeth, still stubbornly maintaining eye contact. The demigod merely stared back at him, a slanted smile on his lips and amusement crinkling at the corners of his eyes. Tony felt a hand release his wrist and long fingers trace upwards along his arm to splay out on the back of his neck, tangling in his hair.

"Oh but I do so like the idea of you thinking with that part of your anatomy," Loki crooned, his words a purr brushing Tony's lips in a cool, exhalation of air. The billionaire experimentally flexed his free hand, and seriously considered punching the demigod in the face again, but his ribs still kind of ached from their fight earlier, and sitting underneath the God of Mischief didn't exactly give him the biggest strategic advantage. He could see the cogs whirring in Loki's head as he realised that Tony wasn't about to play fair, and his fingernails dug into Tony's scalp, pulling his face closer until his mouth was at his ear once more. The billionaire's pulse quickened at both the pain and the proximity, the latter perpetually intoxicating. He opened his mouth to inhale sharply when he felt a tongue trail along the shell of his ear. Lips brushed against his tragus in a soft caress and Loki's breath was curiously cold on his skin, sending another shiver down his spine, as the demigod demanded in a whisper: "_Give in to me, Stark_." And then Loki was biting and sucking and kissing his way down his neck, and Tony was having trouble breathing, and his head was tilting back and his eyes were sliding shut because _wasn't giving in such a tempting thought?_

Liesmith on his lap or not, Tony almost jumped a foot in the air when J.A.R.V.I.S' voice suddenly rang out across the lab.

"_So_ sorry to interrupt, Sir," the AI began dryly, "But I thought it prudent to inform you that SHIELD will have a lock on Mr. Laufeyson's location in approximately 90 seconds. It may lead to, shall we say, _unpleasant_ circumstances if he is found to be at the Avenger's mansion, in your presence no less."

Loki growled in annoyance, but still pushed himself up off of Tony, straightening to tower over the mortal, who thought absently that it was really quite ridiculous how tall the god actually was. The billionaire quickly scrambled out of his chair to stop himself from breaking his neck to look up at Loki, and he watched astonished as with a strange motion of his hands, the demigod's armour suddenly slithered back over his frame, moving like oil on water. For a moment it looked more like liquid than the leather and metal it had to be made of.

"Looks like you've gotta run," Tony said, in a vain attempt to be nonchalant that failed miserably as Loki looked pointedly at his crotch, and raised an eyebrow.

"Mark me, Stark, we are far from finished," Loki replied, after the slightest pause, and Tony didn't doubt him for a second, the spark in his eyes burning with that promise; as red hot and as permanent as the mark left by a branding iron. The demigod abruptly pulled him into a hard, possessing kiss before he vanished just as suddenly, leaving Tony panting and alone in his workshop.

"Well, fuck," he muttered, to no one in particular.

"Agent Hill is on her way down to the workshop, Sir." J.A.R.V.I.S announced.

"Well, _fuck_,"Tony repeated.

Tony spun round and rapidly typed in the end sequence for the heart monitor and exited the program. He still needed to work out how Loki had muted the computer and verify whether it was permanent or not… but he didn't have the time. He was about to have his workshop invaded by the angry pirate's lapdog and he wasn't even wearing a shirt. He ripped off the transmitter belt and unceremoniously stuffed it, along with the detector, into the bottom drawer of his desk, promising himself that he'd put it away more tidily somewhere else, _later_.

"J.A.R.V.I.S, talk to me buddy," he said, picking up his shirt and pulling it over his head, "Does SHIELD know Loki was down here?" He threw himself into his chair, desperately trying to not think about what had transpired in it moments before as his fingers raced over his touch-screens and keypads, closing everything related to his little experiments.

"No, Sir, target lock was not confirmed. I believe they lost the signal approximately 12 seconds before they were due to successfully determine his location," the AI replied before adding, "And may I also suggest sitting with your legs _crossed_, Sir?"

The billionaire was about to snap at the ceiling when his eyes glanced down to his crotch and caught sight of the distinctive bulge that would just be _far_ too awkward to explain to Hill, so he kept his mouth shut and hastily crossed his legs instead. He glared up at where the AI's sensors were before proceeding to pull up a window monitoring the alarm's progress.

"Delete all surveillance footage involving Loki from SHIELD's database, and pause construction of the alarm, I'm going to add something else to it later," he mumbled as he flicked through the schematics on the touch-screen. He wanted to build an override function into the alarm so he could turn it off whenever he wanted, in case he, you know, maybe _wanted_ Loki to visit. He figured he could have the alarm up and running while he got his thoughts in order, successfully removing the possibility of a surprise appearance from a certain God of Mischief. Then, when he had managed to _finally_ decide what he was going to do, or had his head wrapped around what the fuck was going on even _just_ _a little_, he could override the alarm, wait for Loki to come (and he was pretty damn sure the demigod _would_ come, sooner or later), and then tell him his illuminating conclusions. He could always turn the alarm on again and lock the bastard up if things got nasty, of course. Piece of cake.

He heard the whoosh of the elevator doors before his all-time-favourite lieutenant's voice ground out a curt "Stark," and the familiar heavy clunk of Hill's boots echoed around the room. Tony turned to face her just as they reached his desk, a smirk plastered on his lips.

"Maria, to what do I owe this rather dubious pleasure? You don't usually come and visit," he smiled up at the agent, desperately hoping that she didn't know that Loki had been there, twice, in the space of two hours, and hoping even _more_ desperately that if she _did_ know that she had no idea as to the true nature of both interactions. And actually Tony _really _needed to stop thinking about that because now was definitely _not_ the time to get light-headed and, God forbid, _blushy_.

"Fury sent me to check on the status of the alarm," she said, her face as emotionless as a slab of rock, "Have you made any progress?"

God, these agents just had no facial expressions, and if they had emotions at all, they didn't show them. Tony briefly wondered if SHIELD injected them with botox every day to keep their faces like that.

"Not quite done, ran into a little calculations snag, but it'll be fixed and ready in about, thirty minutes?" he said nonchalantly, and span around in his chair to add something to the alarm schematics. He hoped that it would look like he was working on finishing it, when, actually, he was writing the code for an override. He prayed Hill wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

When her face betrayed no hint of dawning realisation, if it even could, he had to hold himself back from letting out a sigh of relief: his dubious fraternization acts were to remain secret for now, it seemed.

"How's the hunt going?" he asked, with carefully feigned indifference. Hill made a noise somewhere between an irritated snort and a growl.

"We almost had him but then we lost the signal," she said to the back of Tony's head, the tiniest hint of aggravation in her voice. Everyone hated being thwarted by the Liesmith; that feeling was universal, whether you were an Avenger, a nameless, faceless cog in the SHIELD machine, or Director Fury himself.

"You have twenty minutes to get it finished, Mr. Stark," the agent ordered, turning on her heel and making her way back to the elevator.

**-IIWT-**

Ten minutes later Tony was almost done with the override code when a voice came booming through his emergency intercom (the one strictly for Avengers stuff that he had actually had to sign a contract for, a contract in which he promised he wouldn't shut the thing off).

"Mr. Stark," the familiar voice of Nick Fury drawled, "I hope I'm not interrupting anything, but we have ourselves a situation. You're needed downtown. The team were looking for Loki, figured he couldn't have wandered too far since we lost our lock on him, and guess what? They found our shiny friend Doctor Doom instead. They need more fire power, Stark, so suit up. I want you in the air immediately." And then his voice cut out, signalling the end of transmission, before Tony could even begin to complain that, uh, _hello_, he was kinda _busy_ right now? And to subtly mention that he was pretty sure he had cracked ribs and a bruised spine from his "hand-to-hand combat" with Loki earlier. Instead, he let out an exasperated little growl before pushing himself away from his desk and heading over to his suits.

Duty called.

**-IIWT-**

Something exploded far too close to his head. The city was in chaos, Doombots crawling along every surface he could see, and though his visor was cracked from an earlier brush with one of the aforementioned invading army, the HUD was still functional. Tiny dots were blazing red all over, so many of them that Tony could barely distinguish one from another. They all bled together in a seemingly endless haze of incoming attackers. As soon as one point of light died out, a dozen more sprang up to take its place. _Where the hell were they coming from?_

"God _damnit _Thor, _I need back up and I need it now_!" Tony shouted into his comms.

A well-timed repulsor blast obliterated the chest of a Doombot that was attempting to make short work of his thigh panels, and Tony cemented its demise by smashing an armoured fist into the gaping hole left by the blast, dislodging the bot and sending it spiralling downwards through the air.

"_What the fuck are you all doing down there, taking a fucking nap or something? Did someone call a goddamn coffee break? Somebody get me some fucking back up because I am a sitting duck up here on my own!_"

A burst of static in his ear was shortly followed by Hawkeye snarking through the comms, "Maybe if you weren't so goddamn shiny they wouldn't be so attracted to you, Stark."

"Shut the fuck up, Barton," Tony growled, "they're robots, not fucking magpies. And wipe that smile off your face. I can hear your smirk from here. Get your ass up to the roof and get these fucking things off my tail. I have to find the leader."

Hawkeye's chuckle was cut short by Steve's voice ringing in his ears, and _man, did he sound pissed_.

"Wait, Tony, _you lost visual on the lead Doombot?_ _When were you going to tell-_"

Tony cut him off, "Cap, just, shut up, alright, I got this. You do your job, and let me do mine, and _for fuck's sake Hawkeye don't shoot so close to me, Jesus fucking Christ_."

The archer laughed again, mocking, as he notched another arrow, "Cool your jets, Metalman, I never miss my mark."

An arrow whistled past his face and Tony growled into the HUD, eyes frantically checking the scanners for a trace of the leader. _Where in the hell had that freaky hunk of metal scuttled off to?_

A flash of movement in the bottom corner of the map in front of his eyes caught his attention, and Tony shot upwards, making a beeline straight for it, no caution whatsoever. That _was_ how Tony Stark rolled, after all; act first, plan later, the polar opposite of a certain Captain Steve Rogers now shouting into his ear through the shared channel. Tony muttered to J.A.R.V.I.S to turn the volume down on the captain's increasingly abusive orders to _get_ _back down here and regroup, Stark, we need to take this on together, you are no match for-_

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, chill out would you, Rogers?"

And suddenly, _there_. There it was again, that flicker, that brief flash on the HUD; one particular dot blinking erratically in and out of existence. Was it a glitch?

Now _that_ thought irritated him. Tony Stark didn't do glitches. Tony Stark didn't make mistakes; certainly never more than once, anyway. He gritted his teeth against his annoyance, and soared in the direction the signal had last appeared in.

He'd know what it was soon enough.

**. . .**

Tony landed in the charred shell of an office building with a heavy thud, floor rumbling unsteadily beneath his feet, the metallic clang resounding through the room. His stabilisers were kicking up paper and dust, and debris filled the air, swirling in a tiny maelstrom around him. The signal flickered again on his HUD, barely enough to get a target lock, and Tony cursed. This was definitely something he needed to improve on when he got back to base, instantaneous target lock, but he pushed that thought away to deal with later. His eyes were still searching the display for that flashing dot, vision clouded by the dust and ash in the air, queerly silent amidst the chaos reigning outside.

In the corner of his eye, something flashed green, and his mind immediately screamed _Loki_.

But it wasn't the slender demigod's fist which made sudden stunning contact with his visor, oh no; the hand was larger than his head, a solid block of gleaming chrome, flickering erratically with streaks of deepest green, and as Tony's head snapped back, it was all he could do to think "_Fuck_" as he spiralled backwards across the floor of the blown-out office, crashing into a heap of broken furniture. The impact sent dust billowing around the room.

He lifted his swimming head, and immediately froze in paralysing shock as through the settling dust he met the violent red eyes of the lead Doombot, suddenly crouched inches from his face. It was looking at him with what could have passed for curiosity, its unnerving eyes focusing, circles within the terrible red spheres rotating and zooming, mapping, cataloguing, archiving, _remembering_. _What was it looking for?_

Because it wasn'tlooking _at _him. Those pools of blood red glass were looking _through_ him, and the feeling made his skin crawl.

Jesus, but the thing in front of him was as tall as Thor, though so skeletal it looked like bare bones encased in metal, and Tony took it all in; he needed to see, he needed to _know_, just as the machine before him seemed to need to know _him_, in turn.

It was crouched barely a foot away, coiled as if ready to spring, and in that moment Tony's brain bizarrely admired the beauty of it, the mastery of the engineering, because, truly, it was exquisite. _For a robot hell bent on the death and destruction of, well, apparently anything and everything_.

It was roughly humanoid, though its limbs were a shade too long, and Tony's mind jumped to images of apes. But the proportions of the thing were just _wrong_. It was of slender build, the surface of its plating not quite like scales, more like panels, and entirely silver, tarnished in places as if burned. The fit of the plates was so tight, so perfect, that the metal almost looked like skin; gleaming, cold, silver skin, that shone and, bizarrely, almost rippled in the shifting light. At random intervals, Tony saw brief snatches of curious green shiver across it.

The shape of its head was vaguely human, though it had no face to speak of, no ears but for holes in the sides of its head, chin pointed like a long teardrop, no other features whatsoever in the smooth surface.

But for those terrible eyes.

They glittered, a deep, awful red, burning in a sea of brushed silver, and their gaze was so foreign as they scanned him, sat collapsed in the rubble, but at the same time so disturbingly _human_, that it shook Tony to his very core. Its eyes were almost manic, intense and fevered, but inexplicably cold, strangely calculating, in the exact same moment.

Tony looked into that endless, soulless red, and thought only of blood.

In the first clutches of total, all-encompassing panic, one thought surfaced.

_I need to get the fuck out of here._

Just as he made the decision to propel himself upwards and _away_ from the monstrous thing he was fairly sure he was no match for (even if his suit _had_ been at 100% functionality, which it really, _really_ wasn't), he watched in abject horror as its face began to change.

Over what should have been lips, the metal _oozed_ back, rippling like liquid, pulling back wider than any human mouth could possibly stretch, and the creature let out a terrible piercing scream that reverberated through the air and jarred Tony all the way down to his bones. The blood-curdling screech ricocheted round and round, unending, and _God_, it was nails on a chalkboard, it was a knife against a porcelain plate, it was _unbearable_. It sounded like torture. The very darkest, deepest pits of hell were full of damned souls that screamed that same long scream. It sounded like agony, like blood and the stuff of nightmares, and the fear it awoke in him was a yawning abyss of black, terror choking the breath from his lungs.

Tony's hands flew up to claw at his head, desperate for the noise to just _stop_.

The awful scream abruptly cut off, strangled in the robot's throat, and the metal, like quicksilver, crawled back down its face, leaving the surface smooth and unbroken once more.

And before Tony could blink, before he could react at all, the Doombot threw him straight through the shattered window, and out into the open sky.

As he fell, he watched the thing jettison itself from the ruins of the office block and launch through the air, colliding with him with bone-shuddering force, pinning him against the opposite building, and the scream of metal on metal was hideous, jarring in his ears, rattling inside his skull, until he was deaf with it. Jagged pain sliced through him as he felt his collarbone break with a sickening snap and he screamed in agony inside his helmet. Through the comms he heard the team shout his name, and there was true fear in their harsh voices, anger and panic both, howling in his ears.

His vision swam and his bones creaked and he dragged his eyelids open to find those hideous eyes, so red, so utterly _empty_, locked with his, and Tony felt himself recoil inside his suit, body pressing back in an attempt to get as far away as possible from the metal _thing_ pinning him with its unyielding weight. But he couldn't break that terrible soulless gaze.

Something was wrong here. There was something he was missing, dots he wasn't connecting. His brain swam in a hot fuzz of dizzying pain and he couldn't think. The panic was choking him, the fear and the agony vibrating in his chest. He couldn't move. He couldn't fight. He couldn't free himself. His arms were pinned to his sides, and those whirring, spinning, unearthly eyes glowed inches from his face, watching him.

And he saw it. Through the haze of red, through the layers of glass and metal and magic, he saw it.

A pupil.

A dilated, _human_ pupil.

Thick skeletal fingers glinted in the daylight as Tony strained against their grip, understanding seizing him like mania, and as the thing regarded him with those awful red eyes, its fingers abruptly tightened their hold on his torso, squeezing, grinding and grating against the armour, and with sudden paralysing clarity, Tony felt the metal buckling, stays giving way, wires snapping, and suddenly the scales of his suit were mashing together in a shower of sparks and the pain in his ribs as they were crushed like dry kindling blinded him.

He heard the captain's scream in his ear, as it echoed his own, and it sounded so far away. He saw white as the creature's grip closed ever tighter around him, before the world faded, shuddering, into the blackness of nightmares, and he spiralled down into terrible, terrible silence.

**-IIWT-**

The laser hissed as it cut through layer upon layer of metal, and though there was no safe distance, for who among them had before seen magic and science combined?, they kept well back from the thing lying ruined on the slab in front of them.

With a deafening crack, the laser breached the innermost layer of the Doombot's shell.

Pincers slid down and under the lip cut into the metal, and there was a crunch and an awful sucking, _peeling_ sound, almost like the opening of a chrysalis, as the shell was pulled back to reveal the mechanism underneath.

Nothing could have prepared them for the nightmare inside.

One technician doubled over and was violently sick down the side of a cabinet, another clutched desperately at the worktop, before collapsing into the arms of a colleague as nausea dragged them into unconsciousness.

The shock radiated through the room, and all stood in total silence, unable to tear their eyes away from the hideous creature broken open before them.

Encased in the gleaming silver shell, lay a disgusting, oozing foetal mass, limbs limp and repulsively skeletal in their metal prison, flesh sloughed from the bones gleaming white under the fluorescent bars of light hanging above them.

It had no eyelids, no nose, and its mouth was a gaping chasm, without teeth, without a tongue. Those terrible eyes stared up from its bone white face, if it could be called a face at all, and a sheen of clear liquid slid across the surface as the air touched its skin, dripping onto the metal around it.

It stank of rot, and decay.

It stank of death.

At last, one man found his voice, and fractured and ragged as it was, it was deafening as he whispered,

"Command, are you seeing this?"

And as hysterical panic boiled up, sweeping through them like a wave, as hands clutched at doors, as bodies pushed and shoved to get out of the place that contained that pitiful, terrible, dead creature, the voice that spoke trembled.

"_Mother of God, they were human._"

**A/N:** _Please feel free to review, and don't forget to read npeg's phenomenal Stony fic: Drowning in a Sea of Stars_


End file.
